Before we get to the Funbag, one quick note: There will be a book signing on Thursday night in DC at the Dodge City bar at 8pm. I'll be around to get drunk and answer your questions about whether nor not Peter King has ever sent me angry emails (Answer: SORT OF!).

Your letters:

James:

Do you think an elite level QB (Rodgers, Brady, Brees) could put together a productive game if he had to play barefoot? For the sake of simplicity, let's say the game takes place in 75-degree weather on Peter King's magical field in Wichita against the league's last place pass defense. I think a real good QB could slap together 200 or so yards. I have been told this number is way too high. Thoughts?

I think if he were able to magically avoid being injured, Drew Brees could easily pass for over 200 yards while playing barefoot. I mean, you saw what he did on Saturday. The Niners defense kicked the shit out of him all day and he still ended the game with 50,000 yards. He's insane. The only reason he wouldn't have a decent passing day playing without shoes is because he would inevitably get his feet mashed by either his own center or oncoming defensive linemen, who would see his bare hoofers and immediately go all Suh on them. And it hurts getting your foot cleated even when you have shoes ON. I can't imagine the agony of a screw-in cleat being driven like a fucking railroad spike into your uncovered big toenail. I'd scream for DAYS. Stubbing your toe is painful enough. When I stub my toe, I sound like Godzilla being electrocuted. The mere thought of having Justin Smith stomp all over it makes me a complete wreck. I don't think a barefoot QB would survive an entire game.

You know which QB would be really hurt by having to go barefoot? You guessed it: THE JESUS BARON. Where's your triple option now, Godboy?

Tardvaris:

Do you think NFL players get free Sunday Ticket? Same goes for NHL and NBA for their packages.

Knowing the NFL, not a fucking chance. But I wanted to cover my bases on this, so I put the question to two current NFL players: Redskins TE Chris Cooley and Vikings punter Chris Kluwe. Their names are so close! They should fuck and name their baby Chris Klooley!

Anyway, Cooley's brother Tanner (who acts as his spokesman) wrote in to say, "They do not. They should though." Kluwe's replied similarly: "We do not get free Sunday Ticket. I know this because my wife keeps bitching about how she has to pay for it to watch me play while she's in California."

Marcus:

This morning as I was leaving the bathroom at work I noticed a guy standing at a urinal with both hands clasped behind his back. Not only were his hands clasped, but he was also leaning back and staring at the blank wall like a modern day Thomas Jefferson standing on the steps of Monticello. I think this is one of the classiest things I've ever seen. Besides this move, what are some other ways I can class up ordinary activities?

FACT: You are 40% more likely to clasp your hands behind your back while wearing a suit, and 85% more likely to clasp your hands behind your back while wearing a tux. It's an easy way of looking dignified. I also find that it comes in handy to do this if your wife is taking five hours to get ready to go out to dinner and you have to find a way of restraining yourself so that you don't throw her down, slap some lipstick on her, and scream at her THE DRESS YOU ARE CURRENTLY WEARING IS FUCKING SUFFICIENT FOR GOING OUT IN PUBLIC. STOP FUCKING CHANGING OUTFITS. Best to keep your hands behind your back to prevent that from happening.

My grandpa used to clasp his hands behind his back all the time. That's a big grandpa move. One day, I want to be rich enough to do classy things like wear an expensive suit and sip brandy in my parlor while Chopin plays in the background and my butler, Coleman, prepares fresh crepes right in front of me. If you want to come across as all classy in your daily affairs, or you want to come off as some kind of steampunk fetishist dipshit, I suggest the following ideas:

1. Any time someone asks you the time, pull out a pocketwatch. "Oh, the time? Let me see here... (pulls out pocketwatch on gold chain) THIRTEEN PAST THE HOUR, THE HOUR WHICH IS THAT OF TWELVE."

2. Use a cigarette holder for your joints.

3. Buy a harpsichord and play it when you have company over.

Amir:

Actually, I'm on the fence...

No waffling here. I'm all in. TWICE.

Freezy:

Do you think the President and the First Lady, or even better, someone who is NOT the First Lady, have ever been walked in on during sex? I feel like it has to have happened before, at least at the heavy petting stage. I just imagine there have been a few times at bedtime where he thinks he is in the clear, then an aide or someone busts in with one last note for the night.

I'm sure aides walked in on Clinton hundreds of times, because Clinton doesn't strike me as the sort of person who would give a shit about discretion. Whenever Clinton got a hardon, he just threw down with whatever happened to be lying around: mistresses, interns, dogs, cats, the ghost of Lincoln, whatever. And if someone walked in on him, then all the better. Only a bigger turn-on. "Okay boys, you got me. Tonya and I was fuckin' in the laundry room again!" Same with Kennedy. I'm sure countless White House workers walked in on JFK getting his knob polished, Clarence Royce-style.

But if we're talking about a presumably faithful, staid couple like the Obamas, I don't think it's as likely. It's not like an aide has clearance to enter the Presidential bedroom without knocking. And that's assuming that the Obamas have even bothered to have sex for the past three years. That's a busy man. He probably faps in the bathroom before bed just to conserve energy. Besides, if I were President, there's no way I'd have sex in the White House. You know damn well that place is bugged, with a live feed going right to G. Gordon Liddy's desktop. No thanks.

UPDATE From reader Tom: "Lady Bird Johnson once walked in on LBJ while he was having sex with a secretary in the Oval Office. Johnson got angry at his Secret Service agents for not warning him that his wife was on her way in. Then he had them install an intercom in there so they could be his lookout whenever he wanted to have sex in the White House. True story."

Adam:

Why has no one called out Aaron Rodgers for ripping off Freddie Mitchell's "People's Champ" celebration? Or, more specifically, why has FredEx not called out Rodgers? It seems like something he would do. I feel like this would be a good way to make Rodgers do it less and vilify the "Discount Double Check" commercials even more, as if they needed to be, hopefully leading to their extinction, which is the way all things associated with Freddie Mitchell go inevitably.

The best part of that video is the announcer up front who says, "I think Freddie Mitchell, before the end of the season, will be the Eagles' best receiver on this team." I'm virtually certain that it's Matt Millen, which is perfect. Adam would also like to note that Freddie's highlight video was apparently posted on YouTube by Freddie Mitchell himself, which is even better than Jay Mariotti writing his own Wikipedia entry.

Nathan:

The Superman car is just obviously awesome. I'm dying to see it again.

And he's wearing a matching Superman hat! That really ties the theme together. I hope he was blasting the original John Williams movie score on his stereo as he drove by you. Or FLEW by you, I should say.

BG:

Do you ever feel like every life decision you've ever made (marriage, home ownership, parenthood, career) was totally wrong? And how do you get past that feeling?

Alcohol.

Brad:

What is your go-to move when peeing in snow? Do you go with the classic ‘write your name' or do you get creative and draw, say, a penis? I usually try to cover as much area as possible in hopes someone will walk by and immediately be impressed with my powerful and abundant pissing abilities.

It depends on the depth of the snow. If there's, like, a foot on the ground, I try and hold my piss in the exact same spot for the entire session, so that it bores a deep, deep hole into the snowbank. If you do it right, you can begin to see the surrounding snow become saturated from underneath with your piss, which is hugely gratifying. And the little hole lets out a torrent of fresh steam, like the little onion tower they make in front of you at Benihana. I like it when my peepee goes THROUGH things. It makes me feel like a big man.

By the way, ever write your name in the snow in piss and it ends up looking like your handwriting? Isn't that amazing? Your hand and your penis write EXACTLY the same! Unreal.

VivaVerlander:

I was flipping past The Matrix on TV last night, and made sure to watch the part where Keanu becomes "The One" and bends the Matrix with his pasty awesomeness. When I finish a particularly brutal workout where I've hit that hundredth (or twentieth) pushup, I can picture myself bending reality with my incalculable strength when I stand up. Tell me I'm not the only one.

Of course you aren't. That's half the reason any man joins a gym (the other half being to ogle other women). Even if you aren't a pumped-up steakhead, there's no denying that little moment after you've finished some stupid weightlifting set or you've finished up on a treadmill, where you step off the equipment and sort of stalk around, like you're some boxer who just scored a knockout. LOOK AT WHAT I HAVE ACCOMPLISHED. FORTY MINUTES AT THE RANDOM SETTING. I like having a towel nearby, so that I can wipe off the hard-earned sweat in front of everyone. LOOK AT HOW MUCH FLUID I EXUDED. There's a reason most gyms are covered wall to wall in mirrors. They're shrines to personal vanity.

By the way, sometimes my gym runs out of disinfecting spray, or those little Purell wipes that you use to wipe down the equipment when you're finished with it. If that happens, it's fair game to leave your sweat all over that shit, isn't it? It's not MY fault that there were no proper cleaning products around. Next gal up in just gonna have to deal with a slippery handlebar on the elliptical.

SR:

After throwing an interception, a lot of QB's will express their frustration by...angrily unbuttoning their chin strap. That has always seemed like a remarkably ineffectual way to demonstrate anger, especially for a manly sport like football. Of all the ways an athlete can show they're pissed off at their own failure, baseball seems to have the best: the "break the bat over your knee after striking out" move (copyright Bo Jackson circa 1989). Do you agree?

I do. Frankly, I think it's inhumane that most sports leagues don't give athletes a chance to properly vent their anger after a frustrating play. If you slam your helmet to the ground when you're on the field, you get flagged. And then what does Mr. Asshole Commentator say when it happens? "Hey, you've got to keep your cool ion that kind of situation." Here's my question: WHY?! Why do you have to keep your cool? You just threw a fucking pick in front of millions of people watching on TV. Many of them will be telling you that you suck and rushing to their computers to type DERP into a live blog. You have EVERY RIGHT to be angry. I think you should be allowed to slam your helmet down, or take a basketball and spike it in the center of a court, or give the finger to the crowd. It's a perfectly healthy, rational thing to do.

HALFTIME!

Adam:

If you could be a bench warmer in one sport, which would you choose? I think being the 12th man on an NBA team has got being a lefty reliever in baseball beat.

Assuming you'd never see the field of play, I think it's football. I know that the NBA would offer you front row seats in a climate-controlled environment, and that's tough to beat. But take it from a seasoned football benchwarmer: IT'S PRETTY COOL. You get to put on the uniform. You get to go through pre-game warm ups. You get to scream your head off when there's a touchdown. And you get to be on the eight outer ring of the huddle when the team gathers right before the game to shout out ONE TWO THREE WIN!!!! And you don't have to play ANY football! At all! Not bad! Take into account matters of scheduling (only eight road trips a year), and the life of an NFL benchwarmer is considerably less arduous than that of any other major sport.

Of course, the NBA benchwarmer makes more money, so there's that. All I know is that I'd never pick baseball. Sitting in hot dugout with a bunch of white country music fans and the chance of a 180 mph foul ball hitting me in the face? Fuck that.

Matthew:

I was watching the Golden Globes last night. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this show. Is there a better way of knowing you're becoming old and boring?

Nope! I like to watch those award shows and then pretend I'm a member of the Hollywood elite, and that I'm cool enough to sneak out during the majority of the awards presentation to hang at the lobby bar with Clooney and his new squeeze. Then we all hit up Swifty Lazar's party afterward and I'm whisked off to the VVVVVVVVVVVIP section, one of those sections that has a caviar trough and is so fancy that none of the TV nominees are allowed inside. Movie nominees only. Then we all head out to a club afterwards and I take the mic and sing QOTSA covers to a raucous crowd. My night of imaginary starfucking is a BLAST.

Ryan:

So if I'm filling out insurance forms, what do I put down as the value of this in case my house burns down? I mean, the adjustor probably says 'Bo Jackson autograph goes for like 5 bucks on ebay, and NES Techmo Bowl goes for $2.' But this is my childhood copy of the game. I literally cannot think of a price.

"In Philadelphia, it's worth fifty bucks."

Dave:

My friend has had a lot of unprotected sex with lots of different chicks and has never gotten tested. He insists that he thinks nothing is wrong with his junk and it doesn't sting when he pees or anything so it's OK and he sees no reason to change anything. He's 22 now, what are the chances he's dead by 30?

Minimal, what with the great advances made in HIV medication. But the number of aborted fetuses and angry exes with herpes he leaves in his wake will probably come back to bite him in the ass. It's amazing how willingly men will skip the rubber despite knowing all of the consequences. To me, that says a lot about how bad of a product the condom is. "Hey guys, here is a product that will save your life and eliminate the chance of having a baby momma. Would you like to use it?" The fact that most men would answer FUCK AND NO tells you how far we have to go in terms of STD-protection technology. It's like living in the Stone Age, frankly. We no longer drive horse buggies, but we still have to use condoms? TOTAL FAILURE OF INDUSTRY. There should already be some kind of virtual force field that surrounds your penis, with tiny robots blasting away at any and all herpes cells that it encounters.

Brandon:

Ever sneeze while peeing? THE WORST.

GAHHHH!! PEE EVERYWHERE!!!

Death From Above:

As the Jerry Sandusky case continues, it gets more and more horrible as time goes on. But I always wonder how the parents/siblings of the ones molested have to feel too. Finding out that, without realizing it, you were sending little Johnny into one of the most horrible situations possible because you were wrong to trust someone. As a parent, how do you think you'd feel? I'd put my feelings at somewhere between murderous rage at the "Sandusky" and being suicidal for unwittingly allowing this to happen.

I can't even imagine what it's like for the parents of Sandusky's victims. Obviously, there would be that initial feeling of rage and murderousness. But remember, one victim's mom already confronted Sandusky and essentially got him to admit it to her face. Did she kill him? No. She probably wanted to. I bet she still lingers on that moment every day, fantasizing about stabbing him in the face, perhaps wishing she had had the nerve to retaliate. But underneath all that rage is not only the feeling of guilt (I let this happen), but also complete and utter helplessness (I had no way of preventing this).

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For example, take a look at this article about a woman who defriended her rapist on Facebook. First of all, JESUS CHRIST! Secondly, here's a woman who was gang-raped when she was just 13 years old when she hung out with some friends one night. Imagine being a parent and having something awful happen to your kid. It would be horrible to think that you could have done something to prevent it, but it's even more disturbing to think that there WASN'T anything you could do about it, that you could be the perfect parent and yet there will still be times when your children will be left vulnerable to the scum of the fucking earth. That's not a particularly comforting feeling, knowing that all of this is a matter of chance.

I remember I was talking to my dad about something once, and he told me he was worried about me. And I was like, "Dad, I'm 27 years old (or however old I was at the time), you don't have to worry." And my dad was like, "Yeah, but just because you're older doesn't mean I stop worrying about you. You never stop worrying." And it's true. Being a parent means spending the rest of your life with crossed fingers. I read Michael Lewis' book The Big Short, which is a great book if you feel like hating the fucking world. And one of the people profiled in it is a man named Steve Eisman. Eisman lost a child when the kid was just a baby, and his wife said this about the death:

"Steven always thought he had an angel on his shoulder... After (the baby's death), the angel on his shoulder was done. Anything can happen to anyone at any time."

That last sentence is the dagger. Either you make it through life with that angel on your shoulder, or fate intervenes and it goes away. I dread that.

Ben:

Would you rather have 80% of your body covered in 3rd degree burns (genitalia/face escapes the burning), or have the face from Mask (Cher version)? On one hand, every minute of life is either spent in physical pain, but on the other side is complete mental anguish.

The Mask face. As someone who has dealt with chronic pain, trust me: You don't want it. If someone came up to me and was like, "Listen, I have a deal for you. You'll never suffer from back pain again, but I have a tattoo Guy Fieri's face onto both of your cheeks," I'll take Fieri. Chronic pain is THAT bad, even more so if we're talking about severe burns. Plus, if you're the Mask guy, you never need a Halloween costume. That would come in handy.

Tom:

Saw this on my commute to work the other day. There is a message in there somewhere.

Yes, and that message would be, "Do not drive close to me." Ever see a really shitty car out on the road and make a concerted effort to not go anywhere near it, just in case there's a methhead behind the wheel who would think nothing of ramming his shit car into your own? I do. I practice car profiling all the time. I am car RAYCESS.

Zack:

I snapped this at the Indian grocery store near me. Do you think this movie takes place in some kind of alternate universe where, instead of being the greatest villain in history, Hitler is actually civilization's greatest hero?

I think something probably got lost in translation, which is too bad, because I'd much prefer thinking that there's some inexplicably burgeoning strain of Nazism in certain remote sections of India.

Also, I took a moment after looking at this picture to Google the phrase "Nazi porn." And wouldn't you know it? There is, indeed, Nazi porn out there. Now I know what Jessie James does in his spare time.

Lincoln:

People love Tebow not because he's religious, but because he's a young, white religious man. The media tries to spin it so that it comes across like it's all about his piety but there are TONS of black NFL players who have been "Tebowing" and thanking God and Jesus and all that. I'd say in general athletes are one of the more religious professions as a whole.

Of course his race has a lot to do with the attention he gets. White rednecks see Tebow running around out there and they're like, "Loogit! We have our Michael Vick!" He fulfills the fantasy that you can be a white guy playing QB and be just as elusive as someone like Vick. I think Tebowtards also like the idea that Tebow is persecuted for his style of play (not to mention his religious beliefs). It lets them co-opt all the old stereotypes of black QBs and use them for themselves. So to sum up: If you root for Tebow, you are RAYCESS.

David:

What things that are a regular part of our lives are the most likely to completely disappear within 10 years, a la VHS tapes or beepers? My money is on movie theaters.

Movie theaters will still be around because plenty of people still like seeing movies on a really big screen, even if it means paying too much money and sitting next to a bunch of retarded strangers. I think the thing that will most likely disappear within the next ten years is the school textbook. That shit has to give way to e-readers at some point. HAS TO.

Email of the week time.

Duck:

Quite literally 2 minutes ago I walked out of a bathroom at room, after a nice dump, and saw a guy laying passed out in the hallway not 30 feet from me. I stopped and stared for about 5 seconds, noticing probably 6 or 7 people stare at him at close range and then walk off, doing nothing. So I ran over and woke the guy up, he had apparently fainted while filling up his water bottle. He was sweating profusely, stammering and asking what time it was. After a minute or so of me making sure he wasn't dying, a guy ran over that happens to be a volunteer paramedic and he took the guy to see the nurse. Am I a hero, or do I work at a terrible place full of bad people that will probably let me die someday?